Book Image

Modern Cryptography for Cybersecurity Professionals

By : Lisa Bock
Book Image

Modern Cryptography for Cybersecurity Professionals

By: Lisa Bock

Overview of this book

In today's world, it is important to have confidence in your data storage and transmission strategy. Cryptography can provide you with this confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. But are you aware of just what exactly is involved in using cryptographic techniques? Modern Cryptography for Cybersecurity Professionals helps you to gain a better understanding of the cryptographic elements necessary to secure your data. The book begins by helping you to understand why we need to secure data and how encryption can provide protection, whether it be in motion or at rest. You'll then delve into symmetric and asymmetric encryption and discover how a hash is used. As you advance, you'll see how the public key infrastructure (PKI) and certificates build trust between parties, so that we can confidently encrypt and exchange data. Finally, you'll explore the practical applications of cryptographic techniques, including passwords, email, and blockchain technology, along with securely transmitting data using a virtual private network (VPN). By the end of this cryptography book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of cryptographic techniques and terms, learned how symmetric and asymmetric encryption and hashed are used, and recognized the importance of key management and the PKI.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1: Securing Our Data
5
Section 2: Understanding Cryptographic Techniques
9
Section 3: Applying Cryptography in Today's World

Chapter 4: Introducing Symmetric Encryption

Today, we use cryptographic algorithms, techniques, and processes to secure our data that is either in motion or at rest. One of the driving factors in this effort is the need for businesses to adhere to standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). However, on a personal level, each of us wants to keep our private data just that: private. Every day, malicious actors launch a variety of attacks to try to gain access to our data. Nevertheless, with strong algorithms that are properly implemented, cryptographic tools and techniques will continue to secure our data and transactions.

In this chapter, you'll gain a better understanding of how symmetric encryption quickly and efficiently secures data. We'll see its humble beginnings, with scientist Horst Feistel of International Business Machines (IBM) creating the Feistel network, a foundational element for every modern-day block cipher. We'll...